The City Council will vote today whether to join Lubbock County and the Lubbock Metropolitan Planning Organization. Lubbock would put up $354,435 - the same as the county and about $100,000 more than the planning organization - to begin the study on the best place to build a new loop around town.

The state, county and planning organization have already signed off on the deal.

"Everybody agrees - the county, city and (state) - that we need to start planning on the outer loop because of (Lubbock's) growth," Mayor Tom Martin said.

An outer loop has been discussed by planners for more than two decades, and it's been part of Lubbock's master thoroughfare plan since 1983, according to city records. In August 2007, the Texas Department of Transportation began the initial study. But it was suspended in January after the department announced it miscalculated its coffers by about $1 billion.

Local governments combined will put up $950,000, with the state paying the remaining $937,000 and doing the work.

The city's portion of the money comes from franchise fees paid by utility customers.

Local officials said it was important to start looking ahead and preparing for what the city might look like decades from now. Area population is projected to top 270,000 by 2030.

The southern part of Loop 289 runs through the heart of the city's retail and commercial sector, and is about four miles north of the city limits in some places.

The planning organization designed the agreement between the city, county and state earlier this year, and approved its share of the money Tuesday. The organization is a federally mandated group of municipal, county and state leaders that oversees transit projects in order to receive federal funding.

"Our loop, as it were, is really not a loop anymore," said City Councilman John Leonard, the chairman of the planning organization. "It's an inside loop."

The proposed study would determine roughly where the loop would be. Initial plans, drawn up 25 years ago, are out of date, Martin said. For example, those plans called for the loop around FM 1585, which today is at the city's southern boundary and nestled among dozens of housing developments.